


SWALK

by Demmora



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/M, Mild Sexual Content, One Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 01:46:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3832471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demmora/pseuds/Demmora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A wintery night in Ankh-Morpork, and an attempted quiet moment in the Postmaster General's office. Attempted being the key word. In fact Moist suspects if the universe ever affords him a quiet moment it may well implode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	SWALK

From his apartment window above the rebuilt Post Office, Moist Von Lipwig watched the pristine snowfall, then watched as it immediately turned grey as soon as it reached the ground, causing carts to skid and forward thinking chancers to dive under them, in the hope that money might be offered not to call the Watch.

Turning his gaze back inside the apartment, he drifted toward the shaving mirror which had been left sitting out over his washstand, and corrected the knot in his neck tie for what felt like the millionth time. No matter how loosely he tied it, inevitably it always felt too tight. Being hanged to within an inch of your life was bound to do that he supposed, along with developing a healthy fear of hooded men and trapdoors. Ruefully he pulled the tie away all together, and let his collar hang open, adjusting it so that it sat neatly against in line with the cut of his vest. As a compromise to formality he picked up his gold winged hat and set it atop his head at a jaunty angle. He’d forgone wearing a suit jacket, Stanley had been in earlier to stoke the fire up to a veritable inferno, and Moist had soon found himself able to take off his scarf and fingerless gloves as he sat running the numbers at his desk. Had he continued to wear his coat he might well have melted.

The fire in question now cast a comfortable ruddiness around the room, enhanced by the dimness of the sulfurous glow of the ensconced gas lamps. Moist had been very particular about having the safety lamps replaced during the refurbishment of the post office. Even the fire place was carefully guarded by a grill, and there was a bucket of sand in almost every room. Sometimes there was even more sand than room. Even Senior Postman Groat had seen the sense in this, and taken his bizarre and volatile concoctions out of the staff locker room and moved them into a shed out back. It exploded periodically, the roof expelling smoke and the same door never to be seen on it more than once, but it was surrounded by dirt and was far enough away from the Post Office that Moist paid it little attention. It was hard to rest easy in a building that was essentially filled with kindling, even if they had put in new fire exits (presumably a proposition put forth by architects of a more spiritual nature, inclined to believe that fire is a living entity, and capable of using a designated exit. Leading Moist to surmise that architects were in fact lizard people who had never seen a building on fire, nor had to work with the general public or try to herd them without a big stick attached to a golem) and managed to wrangle a water tower out of Vetinari’s funds, pleading on the basis that were any of his neighbors to catch fire, Moist and his golems would not in fact sit back and watch them try to initiate a bucket chain in a town which was effectively a circus with an over fondness for pyromancy. And like all forms of ancient magic—prepare for it and in all likelihood it will not happen—the Post Office had seen nary a wisp of smoke since its reconstruction.

Which was, Moist conceded, part of his problem. It had been some weeks since he’d last laid eyes on the electric Miss Dearheart, kept understandably busy by both the Golem Trust and by the reinstatement of the Clacks Grand Trunk into her rightful hands. He’d been round to tea at Dolly Sisters once in that whole time, introduced formally to a teary-eyed but happy Mrs. Dearheart and a rather hollow-eyed Mr. Dearheart who had shaken him by the hand like a man coming out of a terrible nightmare. Not to be put out by this lack of interaction, he’d sent calling cards, designs of his own making, which afterwards he’d been so taken with he’d run down to Teemer and Spools with. As of this week the Post Office was selling premade SWALK cards, available for purchase and delivery at every open teller. He’d sent flowers too, and good dark chocolate, followed soon after by the gift of a silver cigarette holder—complete with brightly colored cigarettes, tipped with golden foils. As a desperate last resort he’d even sent a clacks, stepping inside the office in his shining golden suit, a cheeky grin on his face and the knowledge that she’d hear about him being there probably before she even got the message.

And first thing this morning, whilst sorting through his own mail, he’d been brought up short by the sight of a SWALK card in amongst the pile. He’d dropped it at first, picking it up carefully between two pencils, half expecting it to smoke and disappear in a cloud of ash. But when the little missive failed to self-destruct he’d taken it carefully and held it up to the light, ignoring the familiar swirl of his own artistic flare and focusing on the carefully penned words along the allotted line.

_“Post office, 7pm, A.D.”_

According to the clock above the fire place it was six-fifty-five, and it was all Moist could do not to start running around the upper levels of the Post Office out of sheer nervous excitement. Instead he forced himself to step back behind his desk, and reshuffled paperwork which had no need of reshuffling.

By the time he heard the familiar sound of Groat shambling his way up the stairs, wheezing all the way, Moist was fit to bite through his hat. He looked up when the door opened, setting aside his pencil and smiling his brightest smile.

“Miss Dearheart, to see you sir.” The old postman wheezed, and Moist saw the gleam that glittered briefly in the old man’s eyes.

“Thank you, Senior Postman,” Moist replied, all attention suddenly on the tall slender figure that had stepped into warm glow of the room. She was wearing a long black coat with a slight flare over the hips, her only concession to the resurgence of the bustle in popular fashion. There was fur stole around her neck as well, presumably her only concession to the biting cold, a rich grey which made her flinty eyes all the more startling. She was—of course—smoking, and Moist was secretly pleased to catch the gleam of silver against her black gloves.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” Groat asked, and Moist was surprised to realize he was still in the room.

“Um,” he glanced to Adora who was already shedding her outer layers to reveal a severely plain grey dress, her lit cigarette precariously balanced on the edge of the mantelpiece as she hung her coat on the rack, draping it over one of his own. “Tea? Coffee? Mulled wine?”

“Tea,” she replied curtly, “Preferably with enough sugar to leave the spoon standing up.”

“Right you are Miss,” Groat enthused wheezily, “That’s the only tea us posties know. I’ll send Stanley up sir, anything else just ring sir, just ring.”

“Yes, thank you, Senior Postman Groat,” Moist replied, trying in vain to usher the man out of the room with his own body as quickly as possible, shutting the door in the other man’s face.

When he turned back, Adora was stood by the fire, cigarette held at shoulder height, left elbow cupped in her right hand, her lips forming a perfect o as she exhaled smoke, parting into a smile which made his heart flip over.

“Hello you.”

“Hello,” Moist replied breathlessly, clearing his throat and pushing away from the door to stop just in front of her. “You got my gift then?”

Adora quirked one arched eyebrow at him, lips quirking into a sardonic smile. “I got all of them. Though mother did claim the flowers for her sitting room.”

“How is she?” Moist asked, stepping back when she moved around him, depositing herself onto one of the seats in front of his desk. For such a small room there was an astonishing amount of furniture present. There was a low couch opposite his desk complete with coffee table, and even a bed had been rammed into the corner. It was truly amazing what a golem could fit into a room if it wanted to.

“Oh, fine.” Adora said lightly, “Happy, I suppose. Well, happier. We’re moving house at the end of the month. Dad is…better…”

“Good.” Was all Moist could think to say, retreating behind his desk and stubbing his toe in the process, but as oblivious to the pain as he was unable to take his eyes from the elegant curve of her neck leading up to the sharpness of her jaw and cheekbones, studying every exquisite detail of her face.

“How are the golems?” she asked, turning sharp eyes on him and shaking him somewhat out of his daze.

“No complaints, from them. Today was their day off, so they should be back some time tomorrow.”

“Funny little card you sent,” she said, flicking the ash from her cigarette into the ashtray Moist had procured for just this visit. “Mother thought it was sweet.”

“What did you think?” Moist asked, smiling a little as her lips tried not to curve up into a genuine smile.

“I thought it was very you.”

“They’re selling well,” Moist said, somewhat defensively, resting clasped hands in front of him on his desk as he so often did when one of Vetinari’s clerks appeared for the books. Self-consciously he cleared his throat, wondering where Stanley was with the tea. There were few people could throw him off his game the way Adora could, and it was as nerve-wracking as it was exhilarating. “How did you get hold of one? No one told me you were here….”

“I wasn’t,” Adora smiled stiffly, “I got one of the clacks boys to pick one up for me yesterday, I’ve spent all day overseeing the new towers outside the city. We’re installing new signal boxes. Ones that can’t be jammed with certain codes.”

“You must be very busy.” Moist commented, wishing he could bring himself to talk about anything other than work.

Adora let out a little huff and he almost fell out of his chair when she tipped her head back on her shoulders, exposing the length of her neck in what was no doubt frustration, but to Moist at that very moment was an invitation toward the intimacies of vampiracy. He cleared his throat again, and reached up to loosen the neck tie which wasn’t there.

“Busy is an understatement.” She informed him curtly, “But I dare say I don’t have to tell you, Mr. Lightning, about keeping on the move.”

Moist smiled ruefully, and reached up to tip his hat off from his head, spinning it around on one finger before letting it fly loose. By sheer luck it landed on the bed.

“Come in Stanley,” he said, when he realized the sound he’d been listening to just on the edge of hearing was the sound of a tea tray rattling as the holder tried to knock and balance everything all at once.

When Stanley entered he gave Moist that usual curious smile of his, eyes flicking briefly to Adora before back to the task in hand, setting the rattling tray down onto the desk between them. The spoons continued to clink against the saucers even then.

“Thank you, Stanley.” Moist said, careful to use the light voice he always used around Stanley, “That will be all.”

“Mr. Lipwig.” Stanley inclined his head, then shuffled out, closing the door carefully behind himself.

“You have a different mannerism for each person, don’t’ you?” Adora queried, sitting upright with a little click of her heels on the wooden floor as she bent over to stub her cigarette out, having let most of it crumble to ash rather than inhale it.

Moist merely nodded, shifting so that he might better pour out a measure of tea for her, then watched in fascination as she dropped an innumerable amount of sugar cubes into the steaming liquid. He made a mental note to have more chocolate sent round first thing in the morning.

“The man, smells like s gas leak, Groat? I half thought he was going to offer to show me your teeth from the way he was trying to sell you on the way up the stairs.”

Moist, about to take a sip from his tea, inhaled the liquid instead and began to cough in earnest. Adora favored him with a grin that was more teeth than merriment and took a delicate sip from her own tea cup, leaning back in her chair, quite at ease.

“It’s funny, you’re quite possibly the most crooked person I know, but there isn’t a single person in this building who would refuse dance over hot coal for you.”

Wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, Moist fixed her with a look of his own. “And there’s no one brave enough to say no to you if you asked the same thing.”

“Except you, I think.” Adora said.

“No,” Moist conceded, “I’d crawl.”

In the silence that descended the clock above the fireplace seemed inordinately loud, and the two of them looked at everywhere else but at each other. All the while Moist quietly raged at himself inside. He’d charmed pretty women before, some of them almost as slippery as he was, but never with sincere intent. And to make it worse Adora was as immovable as a mountain and with hidden depths so deep a man might need a snorkel just to survive the top layer. And all Moist wanted to do was throw himself into it and never come out. Oh what the hell…

“I have a confession.”

“Oh?” Adora, _Spike,_ he reminded himself, as she gave him the look which told him she was willing to play his games. “Another one, should I have brought a priest?”

“I don’t want to be your friend.” Moist said in a rush, feeling the air leave him as though he’d been punched when she fixed him with a particularly hard glance. “I mean _obviously_ , I want to be your friend. But I don’t want to be _just_ your friend. I was bloody serious, Miss Dearheart, when I asked you to marry me. Even if I didn’t know it at the time. It was probably the first thing I was ever serious about other than…”

“Not being hanged?” she supplied helpfully when he faltered and Moist simply nodded. There were fewer things more sobering than the prospect of being hanged. And the thought of a life without someone like Adora Belle Dearheart was one of them.

“Why?” she asked as last, breaking the silence and taking another sip from her syrupy tea.

“Why what?”

“Why do _you_ , want to marry _me_?”

Moist thought about it, opened his mouth to speak.

“Because,” he hazarded, sliding the contents of his desk to the one side as though he could somehow clear a path to her through it all, “I…well I…”

He looked up startled when she laughed, her face brightened with genuine amusement. “Moist Von Lipwig, genuinely tongue tied. I should inform the press. Or possibly the nearest priest.”

Abashed he looked down, grinning sheepishly at his desk. “It has been known to happen before.”

“Oh really? When?”

“The first time I met you.”

She sobered at his earnest tone, and straightened in her chair once more. “I tried to put a crossbow bolt through your head.”

“I know.”

“And I snapped at you.”

“I know.”

“I’m snapping at you right now.”

“I know.”

“We’ve only kissed once.”

“That can be fixed.”

The sudden steam around the windows had little to do with the snowfall outside and the heat of the fire inside. Even the clock had the good grace to tick a little quieter. Or perhaps it was simply that Moist could hear nothing else but the hammer fall of his own heart thudding in his chest.

“You got the chandeliers back.” Adora breathed out, her voice quiet and taught in the silence.

“What?”

“You said the next thing you’d do was get back the chandeliers, I noticed them on the way up.”

 _How could you not,_ Moist thought. As chandeliers went these were the primordial ancestors of hanging light fixtures, they didn’t so much glitter and tinkle as other such fixtures did, but groan and rumble under the weight of their own majesty. If you stepped up onto the fourth floor where they could be lit from the heat was like stepping within spitting distance of the sun.

“Tell me,” Adora continued, “Did you find them first, or did you find them after the new ceiling went in?”

Moist inclined his head, unable to keep the smirk from his face. _Ah, yes…_ “You really want to know?”

“Yes. I do.”

“I found the originals first…”

She laughed, somewhat bitterly, “Of course you did.”

“But they were rusted beyond repair so I had new ones commissioned. I paid extra to have them look old and have them delivered before the ceiling was up, just so I could have them sitting on the marble floor for weeks. For the look of the thing, you know? The marble countertops in the foyer however, are the old ones. I found out those were being used in ah,” he cleared his throat, “well, Mrs. Palm was quick to give them back.”

He watched as Adora raised a pointed eyebrow at him, and wondered what kind of heels she had on.

“Mrs. Palm, of the Seamstress’ Guild?”

“Yes, I got the feeling she was rather embarrassed to be honest, but what with Vetinari there…”

“Vetinari was there?!”

“Of course,” Moist frowned his most earnest frown, and drew his feet back from beneath the desk and out of stiletto range. “Why wouldn’t he be there at the civics meeting in the Palace?”

The look she gave him could have kept milk frozen for a month, but it warmed Moist’s heart immeasurably. He grinned, and Adora gave him a particularly _spiky_ look.

“You’re impossible.” She fumed, picking up the tea cup and looking at it like she couldn’t decide whether to drink or throw it over him.

“And you still want to kiss me.”

“I most certainly do no—“

“You do.” Moist interjected smoothly, “Or you wouldn’t have brought it up, or not lit another cigarette this whole time.”

The heat in the room increased yet again, and Moist watched as Adora pointedly drew out one the brightly colored cigarettes, affixed it to the silver holder and was only slightly disappointed when it didn’t self-ignite under her furious stare. Instead she got up to where the fireplace was, and bent over to light it from the flames.

There are few things more enticing than the sight of a woman in a tight dress bending over, and Moist quickly found that one of them was a woman in a tight dress bending over to light a cigarette, followed by said woman righting herself to stare him down as she inhaled the whole thing in one furious breath, breathing out smoke like a dragon. She was, in that moment, a dark and terrible goddess of fire and chaos, and in the back of Moist’s mind, primordial fear danced with desire and cried “yippee.”

Never one to back down from a challenge, and it _was_ a challenge, Moist managed to move out from behind his desk and came to a halt in front of her. The look she was giving him was flinty, but there was apprehension there too as she shifted from foot to foot.

 _She’s out after dark, without a chaperone, in what is essentially a man’s bedroom,_ a little thought interjected through the haze. _Even if this woman can cripple you for life with her shoes and spit roast you with a look, she is out dark after hours without a chaperone in a man’s bedroom._

Another little voice informed him _It’s after dark and you’re alone in your bedroom with a woman who can cripple you with her shoes and spit roast you with a look, they may never find your body…at least not all of it…_

“Miss Dearheart,” he began, drawing in a shaky breath and trying not to cough when smoke filled his lungs. “Do you trust me?”

“With what?”

Moist laughed, or gave a little coughing chuckle.

“But yes…I do.”

“With what?” Moist mirrored, aware that Adora was leaning up into him, lips slightly parted, but it was her eyes which drew him in, blue-grey pools of perilous depths pulling him in and making it impossible to breathe.

“Against all common sense,” her lips quirked in a little half smile as he leant down, so close now their noses were touching, “with everything.”

There was a cough from the door, and Moist shot back so quickly he almost fell backwards over his desk. “Mr. Lipwig…”

“Yes Mr. Groat, what is it?” he demanded, self-consciously smoothing a hand over his face. Adora had turned away, face toward the fire. He thought her shoulders might be shaking.

Tolliver Groat stood peering round the doorway, or at least he would have been if one gnarled hand hadn’t been covering his eyes. “Sorry sir, but there’s a message for you from the—“

Moving quickly, Moist stepped over to the door and gripped the frame. “Not _now,_ Mr. Groat.”

“But sir—!”

“Not. Now.” Moist repeated, prizing the other man’s fingers from the door and ushering him out, “I’m sure it can wait. In fact, unless the building is on _fire_ Mr. Groat, and positively certain that it can wait.”

Groat hesitated, eyeing his younger Senior Post Master with a look somewhere between “ _But…_ ” and “ _it’s your funeral_ ” then simply nodded. “Right you are, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“Thank you.” Moist said somewhat breathlessly, and shut the door once more, leaning against it as though he half expected a battering ram bearing horde to come charging through at any moment. “Now, where were we?”

Adora turned back to him, face crinkled up with suppressed laughter. “Oh my gods,” she breathed, “For a moment I thought my heart would stop.”

“I think mine did,” Moist replied breathlessly with a little grin, amazed at how happy her laughter could make him. “Now seriously, where were we?”

To her credit, Adora played the game, stepping back out of his reach with an indignant little squeak, and eventually allowing herself to be caught, pressed up against his desk, leaning as far back as she could until Moist pulled her into him and buried his face in the side of her neck, kissing down the length from her jaw to the tender skin between neck and shoulder, grazing her skin with his teeth when she sighed into him, her fingers tangling harshly with his hair and keeping him in place. She gave a startled little yelp when he bit down properly, but she didn’t try to push him away either, and Moist found himself grinning against the side of her neck, pulling back to find her looking up at him wide eyed but just as fevered looking as he felt.

“I have been wanting to do that for _weeks_.”

“I better not have a mark.” Adora informed him tartly, reaching up to swipe at her neck in what he now recognized as faux irritability. “Some of us still have a reputation to protect.”

“Well you’d better mark me too then,” Moist informed her, leaning down to nudge her nose with his and being rewarded with a chaste and hesitant kiss on the lips in return. It was a far cry from the searing kiss she’d given him on the night of the fire, but somehow it meant so much more. “Some of us have a different reputation to protect.”

He was startled when she bit him, though why he wasn’t quite sure. If you were fool enough to poke a tiger, you’d best be certain it couldn’t poke you back, and in Adora’s case she had her claws into him in an instant, sharp nails raking through his hair to prickle down the back of his open collar, her lips pressed fiercely to his as her teeth nipped his bottom lip hard enough to probably draw blood. Moist found it hard to care. Instead he reached under her, hands firmly on her shapely behind and lifted her up onto the desk, leaning into her to deepen the kiss.

After several moments of warm wetness and severely deprived of oxygen, Moist pulled back when he became aware that she was in fact, _giggling._ If the cigarette hadn’t lit his brain on fire, then this entirely new development was making things in the back if his mind skitter off in funny new directions all at once. It was enough to make his toes curl.

“What? What is it?”

“Your work ledger is digging into my backside,” Adora informed him primly, tilting elegantly to one side and lifting the offending book out from beneath her derriere, a hasty scrawl on the front catching Moist’s eye before she let it drop to one side and returned her full attention to him. “Tell me, Mr. Postman, don’t you think this technically counts as fraternizing with the enemy?”

Moist stooped down a little bit further, bracing both hands on either side of her so that she was forced to lean even further back. If anyone were to walk in now there would be a crossbow wedding by sunrise and no mistake. The thought made his brain tingle.

“You know, I did have some thoughts on that,” he murmured between short, but no less sweet, kisses.

“Oh?” Adora queried, though from the way she turned her face to the side and exposed her neck to his mouth again, Moist knew her mind was entirely elsewhere. “Do tell.”

Which was the moment Moist chose to pull back, bringing with him the ledger she’d been sitting on mere moments before. He didn’t look up at her, he didn’t have to. He knew her face would be changing from enamored to surprised, then bordering on something like jilted rage, but he pointedly _did not look up_.

Instead he made his way over to the low couch and sat down, absently patting the empty spot beside him as he flipped through the paperwork. “I had an idea, as to how he might resolve some of our conflict, but maintain a healthy working relationship.”

“Oh?”

Outside the snow sighed enviably of the frost in her voice, and doubled its efforts to bury Ankh-Morpork by morning.

“Yes. Tracking. We could set up a system by which people can pay extra to have their mail tracked…so I don’t know, say you’re sending the family heirloom to Genua for unknown reasons. It goes by special coach, yes? Well we put a number on that coach, and when the coach passes a designated clacks tower, they can send a clacks back to the city informing the customer where on the Disc their package is…then if they want they can send a clacks to Goodie Smith letting her know it’s only a week away, instead of lost in the ether for a month...”

He was surprised, that apparently despite all her better judgement she had come down to sit beside him, leaning over to peer at his notes and calculations with genuine interest. He’d expected at least some hurled objects. Instead Moist took that moment to take in the ruffled nature of her neckline, her somewhat mussed hair, and the smudge of light rouge around her lips, wondering if he wore signs of it around his own mouth. Probably.

“But the mail doesn’t need to be tracked…you’ve yet to lose a mail coach, as far as I’m aware.”

“That’s not the point. The point is people want peace of mind, and knowing that their valuable items are in fact moving where they ought to be moving to and that the driver isn’t sitting out back of a Sto Lat pub for a month…it’s all about efficiency Spike, efficiency and the illusion that you’re still in control of something even when you’re not. People pay a lot of money for that sort of thing. Not to mention people are still wary of using the clacks, especially since they’ve gone dark for prolonged maintenance. If we get them using it again for every day little things, like this, it will give you more time to build up the other towers and get back to full running order while still being able to take money in…”

“The Clacks Tracks,” Adora murmured, turning her gaze out to the now frost patterned window. The part of Moist which was always marked ‘on’ scrabbled to write that down on the perpetually scribbled jot pad of his brain. When she turned back to look at him she was smiling. “It’s all about being one step ahead of the game with you.”

“Not always,” Moist corrected, “Sometimes it’s just about knowing where your own feet are. You can always leap, Spike, but you can’t always fly unless you’ve climbed high enough. And even then it’s more like falling and managing to survive…”

The kiss was sudden, and smothering, and Moist found the words quite literally sucked out of his mouth. He was even more surprised when she pushed the ledger out of his lap, sending the papers scattering to the floor, and replaced it with herself, wriggling into a more comfortable position as his stunned body eventually caught up with his sparking brain and his arms wrapped fully around her. Suns could have died and been reborn in that moment, and neither of them would have noticed nor cared. All Moist could think of was the reassuring weight of her in his lap, the warmth of her in his arms, and the fierceness of her mouth against his. There were one or two pressing matters he was becoming aware of as well, so of course someone started knocking on the door with the volume and insistency of a determined if slightly deranged woodpecker.

“Mr. Lipwig?”

Moist cursed, or he would have done had his words not been muffled by Adora’s mouth. He pried himself away just long enough to draw shuddering breath and bellowed, “Not _now,_ Mr. Groat.”

“But Mr. Lipwig sir, it’s rather urgent, sir.”

Moist looked down at the glorious woman in his arms, and sighed.

“I told you Mr. Groat unless the building was on fire I di—“ he trailed off, choking on his words at the sight of Mr. Groat’s face peering nervously round the door, beady eyes darting away in a mockery of modesty, “Oh ye gods the buildings on fire isn’t it?!”

“Not quite.” Said a much calmer, smoother voice, and Moist stood up so quickly that Adora was left suspended above the couch for several seconds before landing on the cushions with a little huff of surprise.

“Ah, Miss Dearheart,” Vetinari’s eyes seemed to skip between the two of them without even moving. Hastily, Moist wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, hoping to remove the lipstick marks from his mouth but probably only serving to spread it about. “I was unaware that you had returned to the city.”

Which was, Moist knew, to be an unequivocal lie. In fact Moist fully suspected that the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork would be aware if an unknown pigeon landed somewhere in the city. After all, the clacks wasn’t the only means of sending messages through the air.

“Lord Vetinari.” Adora greeted him coolly, managing to stand up somewhat more gracefully than Moist had, even as she was forced to inch the fabric of her skirt back down into place. Moist could feel his ears beaming, he was certain people outside in the city would be able to see them and wonder if it was a new clacks signal being built. People in Genua probably knew by now…

“Forgive me for stopping in so abruptly,” the tyrant drawled, easing himself down into one of the vacant chairs in front of Moist’s desk and leaning on his cane. “But I was in the immediate location and did try to send word but it seems it was…waylaid.”

By the door the sound of Senior Postman Groat clearing his throat was like gravel sliding over sheet metal, and Moist favored him with a glare which was in no way a glare, but hopefully conveyed in full just how necessary it was for Groat to be anywhere else but here right at this very moment.

“Um, tea, your lordship?” the old man hazarded, and Vetinari turned cool eyes toward him.

“No, thank you, Senior Postman Groat, is it? I shan’t be staying long. Not while our Post Master is so thoroughly _engaged_.”

The last word hung in the air, ripe with awkwardness, and the two young people at the room looked at each other then looked away, suddenly finding themselves with a keen interest in the wallpaper and the grain of the floor. It was Moist who recovered first, pulling up confidence from his boots like it was cement and plying it thickly over the gap where uncharacteristic embarrassment had made him crack.

 _Just who did Vetinari think he was, eh?_ All right the man was the tyrant of the city, but this was _Moist’s_ office, and if he wished to entertain a lady here, then so be it. Even if the lady in question happened to be his main rival for message delivery in the surrounding city and beyond…

He said none of this of course. Instead what came out of his lips, in his best politely interested voice was, “What can I help you with, sir?”

“Fortuitously, Post Master, it is what you _both_ may help me with.” Vetinari informed him, reaching inside his winter cloak and pulling out a sliver of paper, which he offered to Adora. “This came into the palace tower some time ago. My clerks have found it…illegible, and believe it to be a code meant to break the private tower. I had wanted your opinion on it, Mr. Lipwig, knowing you to be a man of some resources. But if Miss Dearheart is able to—“

“It’s a cracker code all right,” Adora confirmed, turning it over in her hands and holding it up to the light as though there might be something she was missing. “You can tell by the algorithms and how it skips every other line…it looks like a test run, Sir.” Proffering it back to him and taking it back for further examination when Vetinari held up one thin hand.

“Can you track where it came from?”

“Possibly…yes, most likely. If there’s a rogue tower out there I can find it.”

“Good. Please, do so in all haste, you will find your time is thoroughly compensated for. As for yourself Mr. Lipwig, I’m going to require your particular skills in another matter entirely.”

“Oh?” Moist enquired, hands neatly clasped behind his back as he bounced on the balls of his feet, feeling a new kind of energy pouring in through the top of his head.

 _Rogue clacks towers, possible spies in the city—illegal ones at least—and Adora hadn’t said no to marrying him._ She hadn’t said yes either, but if the way she’d kissed him had anything to go by then life was about to become perpetually interesting.

“Y-eees,” the Patrician drawled, reaching inside his cloak again and pulling out a rather more substantial looking paper—this one sealed in a brown envelope, notably with no stamp attached. “Tell me, Mr. Lipwig, how soon you think you can get this to the Low King of the Dwarfs?”

Moist took the envelope, it somehow felt immeasurably heavier than it ought to be.

“From here to Bonk, in this weather?” Moist glanced out the window, where now the snow was in earnest trying to become a blizzard of monolithic proportions.

And turned back to face Vetinari’s unblinking stare with the broadest grin he could muster. “How soon would you like it delivered, sir?”

“Very good, Post Master Lipwig.” Vetinri replied, easing himself up with the aid of his cane, “do not allow me to detain either of your any further. Miss Dearheart.” He inclined his head, and drifted out of the cramped office space as though he had never been.

Still holding the envelope between both hands, Moist turned to regard Adora, who was scrutinizing the clacks roll paper with a neat little frown.

“Well then,” he said with false brightness so sunny the winter outside almost melted, “Looks like we’re going to be even busier.”

“Yes, it does seem that way. I should get home and show this to my father…he might have some ideas about what these new symbols mean…”

Moist, who was good at running numbers in terms of money but was hopeless at deciphering the clacks, merely nodded.

“I should probably get ready to head to Überwald…I have a feeling sending this by special delivery without the winged hat might be the surest way to get myself fired.” Then added on silently _out of a cannon._

“Well then, we’re agreed.” Adora said with such an air of ringing finality Moist found himself looking round for the anvil which had surely just been struck.

“Are we? That’s good. Agreed on what?”

“When you get back we can sort out our own business. The clacks tracking,” she said with an air of exasperated simplicity when he continued to look at her vacantly.

“Oh right, yes, yes that would be…that would be nice.”

“Of course the wedding will have to wait, but I dare say mother will have most of it planned by the time we’re ready…”

 _The wedding,_ the words sparkled through Moist’s head, “You’re saying yes? You’ll marry me?”

Adora gave him a look, somewhere between amusement and derision and reached out to pat him lightly on the cheek as though he were simple of thinking.

“Someone has to keep their eye on you.”

Lightning fast Moist grabbed her hand and pressed his lips to the palm of her hand, kissing his way up her wrist and along the length of her arm until he found her neck again where she allowed herself to be pulled back into his arms. He paused when he became aware of a pressure point on his foot.

Pulling away from his attentions of her décolletage, Moist looked up into the hard and familiar gaze of Adora on the warpath.

“I want a seventy thirty split of profit from the tracking.”

“Sixty forty,” Moist interjected, risking a kiss to the side of one razor sharp cheek. “Leading toward fifty-five, forty-five split in my favor after the first five years.”

Adora frowned, but kissed him back when he pressed a chaste kiss to her pouting lips. “You’re actually willing to let me take advantage for the first five years?”

“I think keeping all my toes is an advantage.” Moist murmured, feeling her smile against his mouth and grinning in return. “Besides, you know what they say, happy wife, happy life.”

“Sounds boring.” Adora replied, catching his lips with hers again and wrapping her arms fully around his neck as Moist’s hands enveloped her waist.

“Depends on the wife,” Moist replied between locked lips.

And just for a moment, a single wonderful moment, while outside the air cut like knives and snow fell in great tumbling heaps, inside, the world sparkled and glowed, and it had nothing to do with the firelight.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing, all content herein was written purely for fun and writing practice.


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